The Seven Deadly Sins
by Blossomwitch
Summary: LeorioXKurapika. Seven ficlets dealing with different aspects of their relationship, each fic prompted by one of the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Pride, Envy, Greed, Wrath, Lust, Sloth. Written for the seven sins virtues community on Livejournal.
1. Gluttony

_A/N: I think I have an unhealthy love of challenge communities. But they do... well... challenge me! Anyway, Gluttony is up first, a darker look at this relationship. And no, I couldn't be bothered to come up with another title. _

Gluttony

Leorio knew he should deny him.

Those moments--they only came a few times a year, less than that. They never saw each other anymore. But when they did--then they always wound up in each other's arms, just for a moment or two, hurried and desperate and hidden behind closed doors. Those moments were stolen, they were short and fast, and Kurapika never wanted to talk during them. Leorio didn't really want to either. Neither of them were keen to discuss what they were doing, and there was no point asking about a future. There would be none.

This they both knew beyond doubt, and it made them all the more desperate. Somehow they never wound up going all the way--never enough time, never enough surrender. They would cling to each other, in dark corners or alleys away from the glare of streetlights, as close as they could--sometimes Leorio would lift Kurapika straight off his feet, press him against the wall, and Kurapika allowed it. Their kisses were deep and fast and sometimes bloody, their teeth clashing, their grip bruising.

Leorio knew Kurapika was reaching for much more than him. He was reaching for life, a life he would never get to live. Trying to fit all the things he would never have into these brief, gasping moments--kissing girls, kissing boys, late nights rolling around on a cheap sofa, dates and smiles and tears and making up all over again; that first time when he tucks the covers around you so gently afterwards. None of it anything Kurapika intended to live to see, and so he would take it all here, as much as he could, desperate to wring everything out of it that could be wrung because it was all there would ever be. Leorio didn't care when Kurapika hurt him, tugging his hair too hard or scratching him with his fingernails. He understood why he did it.

And still--he should have denied Kurapika. Should have forced him to live long enough to experience it all for real, should have refused the tacit understanding that this was all there was. There was suicide implicit in those searing kisses, and Leorio should have called him on it. But Leorio, too, was seeking in those brief encounters a life that he wouldn't have--the life where he would settle down with the person he loved, introduce him to his parents, become so used to sleeping next to him that they would have to work to rebuild their spark, tease him about his first grey hairs. Equally wonderful as all those things Kurapika wanted, and equally lost to him.

So he didn't speak, and he didn't make Kurapika speak either--he just went to him when Kurapika gave him that look at tilted his head slightly to the side. And then it began--the bruised imprints of their fingertips, the gasping breaths, the tears hovering at the corners of their eyes, the heat pouring off them in waves. Stealing as much life as they could, carving it out in huge, gasping chunks, consuming as much was possible. Until a clock chimed, or a cell phone went off, and then it was back to business and it might be a year or more until they saw each other again, if they ever did. Life was uncertain. Leorio knew full well that Kurapika had never been his. And yet, in those increasingly long months between meetings, he couldn't feel like he was starving every time he remembered Kurapika's desperate touch, his eyes that pleaded for silence, his suicidal kisses.


	2. Pride

A/N: This one wound up in a similar tone to "Gluttony;" I do promise more variety in the future.

Pride

"You're too proud to admit you might be in love with me."

Silence greeted Leorio's statement, an icy calm that had been steadily getting less calm and more icy. Kurapika was the only person Leorio knew of who could make locating articles of clothing thrown haphazardly around a room look like an act of dignity. Particularly when the room in question looked like a tornado had come through it recently. To be fair, it had not been clean to begin with--Leorio was, after all, in med school and had little energy for petty things such as picking up after himself--but after Kurapika had arrived, the poor room hadn't stood a chance. They were both known for their tempers, they were both easily provoked by each other, and they were both completely out of patience. Things had been thrown, including books, glasses, and punches. It was a miracle there weren't holes in the walls.

Or maybe there were. Leorio hadn't checked, but he did remember hitting the wall a time or two in frustration. That, of course, was before they had wound up in bed. Strange, to go from such tempestuous fighting to lovemaking--but the extreme of any one emotion usually indicated the other was also present. With Kurapika, hate and love, anger and arousal, were so closely linked to each other and could shift so easily from one to the other and back that it made their relationship indefinable. Important, but unnamed.

When Kurapika had first kissed him it had been more of a bite. In the middle of the worst fight they'd ever had, Leorio raging about something he didn't even understand but was pretending to, seeing that he was pushing Kurapika to tears and strangely satisfied at the visible sign he actually gave a damn. Then suddenly his mouth was stinging and bleeding and Kurapika was gripping his tie and collar like he meant to throw Leorio across the room. But before that happened Leorio grabbed a fistful of Kurapika's hair, also like he meant to throw him, and then they were suspended for a moment--halfway between a bite and kiss, violence and its opposite, and then suddenly they were pressing against each other with the same passion they'd been pushing each other away minutes ago. This relationship had no rules.

So they'd wound up in bed, finally, for the first time in so many years of frustration and repression; hurried, still furious in a way, speaking only when necessary. There were moments when the sex deteriorated into useless fighting for a moment or two again. But then there had been some sort of unspoken surrender, some sort of weary truce; and they had turned to each other with openness, vulnerability, at the very end. And Leorio knew he would remember how that felt for the rest of his life, every day, on his deathbed he would think of being in this disaster zone of a room on a dingy mattress too small for them both. With Kurapika.

Afterwards--utter exhaustion. Both of them completely drained, lying side by side naked and panting and silent, every emotion purged. Leorio wouldn't have minded staying like that for the rest of the night, but eventually Kurapika sat up, touched his hand without looking at him, and started to dress. Leorio asked him where he was going.

Home, Kurapika replied. Home, for him, being on the other side of the world.

The second fight was much tamer, due to sheer exhaustion and nothing else. Leorio had not anticipated it, and he should have. There was no one better versed in denial that Kurapika. It wasn't that he didn't feel; Leorio had a hunch he felt much more than most people did, but he isolated the emotions he chose to act on and ignored the rest, and he did it with the same casual competence most people gave to tasks like driving a car or doing the dishes. He was so good at it that it was possible he even believed what he said, that nothing had changed today. That the fact that they'd tried to destroy each other and wound up making love instead was insignificant, unimportant in their lives. Leorio stayed on the bed and spoke sternly, and Kurapika continued to dress calmly, until Leorio became exasperated enough to finally speak the word they'd both avoided like the plague. "You're too proud to admit you might be in love with me."

Kurapika--fully dressed now, looking like none of this had ever happened--looked at Leorio with his eyebrows slightly raised, and replied coolly, but calmly. "You're too proud to admit I might not."

And then he walked out of the room, without so much of a goodbye, leaving Leorio to wonder which one of them was right. Or if, perhaps, they both were.


	3. Envy

_A/N: Here's the (much) different one I promised! _

**Envy**

Kurapika tried to keep his envy in check.

He did a relatively good job of it, too. Good enough that he didn't believe any of his friends knew how deeply he envied them. He tried not to think about it--it wasn't that they'd done anything deliberately to hurt him, after all, and it wasn't something that had happened through some failing of his own. Most importantly, it wasn't anything that could be changed. So he dealt with it the best he could, just one of those dull aches he had to live with and ignore as much as possible.

But sometimes, it blindsided him.

He was with Leorio, when he lost control of it. It was a rare moment for the two of them--no project to be worked on, and no Gon and Killua in attendance. Kurapika loved Gon and Killua, but more and more often as the years passed he found himself craving time with Leorio--just Leorio. As though he was expecting something to happen, but wasn't sure what. At any rate, the Nostrads were staying in a town only a few hours from Leorio's school, so Kurapika had declared he was taking leave--he had done enough for Nostrad to be able to get away with such things on short notice.

They were walking in aimless circles, the conversation also moving aimlessly--though it tended to center on their shared experiences, or other things that had happened since they'd known each other. Kurapika knew that Leorio deliberately avoided talking about his past or how he grew up to prevent Kurapika from having to do the same. He appreciated the effort, even though it occasionally made the conversational flow a little stilted.

It was during one of those awkward pauses that there was suddenly a loud, feminine squeal from nearby, and the next thing Kurapika knew Leorio had been attacked.

Or--not really. It was a hug, not an attack, and Kurapika relaxed his grip on his weapon. A woman was hugging Leorio so hard he was turning purple; she was also babbling too quickly and excitedly for Kurapika to discern the actual words. Leorio smiled awkwardly, tried to loosen her grip, offered stammered reassurances. Kurapika waited patiently for an explanation.

And nearly froze in shock when the woman finally calmed down enough that he could understand her speech. "--know what you're doing to Mom?" she exclaimed. "You're going to worry her to death, never letting her know where you are! And I can't tell her that I hear from you more than a few times a year or I know where you are either--you're not still running around the world like a pirate, are you?"

"He's in med school."

Both of them turned to look at Kurapika with surprise. Kurapika was surprised himself; he hadn't meant to speak. He certainly hadn't meant there to be an edge to his tone--and he wasn't sure if the edge had been meant for the girl or Leorio.

Leorio finally recovered with an introduction. "Kurapika, this is my sister, Riko--"

"You never told me you had a sister."

Riko answered him, still cheerful and babbling and unaware of the minor tension now building between the two men. "Oh, don't be insulted, he never tells us anything either! I didn't even know you_lived_ here, Leorio! You could at least tell us that! Wait a minute--med school? You got in? How are you paying for it?"

Poor Leorio couldn't get a word in edgewise to answer the questions--but then, he wasn't trying too hard. Kurapika wondered what was showing on his face, that was causing Leorio to keep a wary eye on him--what he felt was shock, sheer shock, and the beginnings of some powerful negative emotion he couldn't name yet. "Well," Leorio finally began to answer, "that's really none of your business, sis--"

"Why haven't you told Mom that you're in med school?" Riko cut him off again, hitting his shoulder to emphasize the point. "She would just about die with pride, you know! Honestly, Leorio, why do you hide from us?"

"I didn't--hey, I wanted to surprise her--"

"You haven't told them that you're a Hunter, either, have you?" Kurapika found himself saying, his tone flat.

His statement produced two reactions. One, Riko was finally astonished enough to stop speaking and not immediately resume it. And two, Leorio finally bristled. "No, I hadn't--and I hadn't planned on you announcing it for me either--"

"You never told me you had a sister," Kurapika repeated, louder. Leorio stepped back a pace, eyebrows drawing together, obviously befuddled by the strong emotional response Kurapika was exhibiting. "You never said one word about family. I thought--" _I thought it was because of what you told me about you and Pietro, I thought they'd rejected you._ "I thought--"

Though he had stepped back, Leorio rallied--he always responded to Kurapika's anger with wrath of his own. "How is it any business of yours, anyway? You've got some nerve to--"

"_I've_got nerve? You have a family--" Kurapika was nearly choking, and Leorio's eyes were wide. "You actually have a mother and a sister, and you ignore them? How can you be so wasteful?!"

There was stunned silence--Kurapika not the least stunned of all of them. Without another word, scared of what else he might say, he turned and walked briskly away.

His whole body was shaking. He couldn't remember the last time anything other than the Ryodan had made him so angry--and it was nonsensical, Leorio was right, it wasn't any of his business. But nonetheless, he could feel his eyes burning red-hot, and kept them carefully to the pavement as he walked, nearly running.

And then anger burnt itself out, and the real emotion took its place: envy. Envy, a deep knife-cut through the stomach, fathomless and burning. And hopeless, for Kurapika could never reclaim what he envied Leorio of, or make Leorio see what he had.

The emotion was fierce, for all its suddenness, and it wouldn't subside. After walking for the better part of an hour Kurapika finally gave up and sat down on a park bench, chewing his lip and looking at the ground. The envy, finally unleashed after years of restraint, rushed pitilessly through him. He tried so hard, not to be envious--not of Gon's aunt, not of Leorio's newly discovered sister, not of the people that passed on the street able to hold their children's hands--

"I told her I'd have dinner with her," Leorio said from a few feet behind him. Kurapika flinched slightly--Leorio must have followed him the whole time. "I also told her to get lost for tonight because it was more important that I fix this with you." A hand tentatively touched his shoulder. "Basically, you're right. It would take too long now to get into everything and explain--why I don't really talk to them--but you're right that I shouldn't waste it." A hesitation, and then his other hand, Kurapika's other shoulder. "But you always knew that I had a family, Kurapika," he said severely. "You, me, Gon, Killua. That's a family."

_It will never replace what I lost._ Nonetheless, the offering was there--small but real, a bright coin dropped down a hopelessly deep well. And Leorio probably knew how little help it was, but it was all he could do.

Kurapika suddenly thought on how Leorio had directed their conversation earlier--how he directed all their conversations--away from the past, away from any subject that might cause pain. Even family. The tactic might have backfired horrifically, but Leorio was trying to spare him. So Kurapika took the gift for what it was, and offered a quiet "Thank you," in return.

Even so--even with the offer made and accepted, and understanding reached--the rage, the bitter envy, that had been touched off in Kurapika couldn't be turned off so easily. They both knew it. So they both remained where they were, silent and still, waiting for things to settle as the sun dropped beneath the city and the pedestrians flowed around them; waiting for it to be safe to move.


	4. Greed

_A/N: Very short one this time, and somewhat offbeat, but I like it. Over halfway there!_

**_Greed_**

Every time he visits Leorio, he comes away lighter from the encounter.

And he means that literally. Not that Leorio somehow lightens his spirit, eases the load for awhile. He means Leorio takes things from him.

Sometimes it's physical things. When the fourth exam is over and the badges no longer matter, Kurapika finds he is missing his; en route to Killua's home, his watch disappears. He knows it's Leorio doing it. He thinks it's meant to provoke him, so he does the thing he believes will irritate Leorio the most: ignores him. There's a fierce kind of pleasure in playing this sort of game with a friend for once, not an enemy; seeing how far you can push the other with no fear of the consequences, no fear of losing the friend.

Sometimes it's not physical. Leorio is good at extracting words Kurapika did not want to speak. During the hidden exam, the story of his people--not meant to be shared. After finding Killua, a promise to keep in touch is made. Kurapika doesn't intend to make promises to anyone but the dead; Leorio steals them anyway.

The pattern gradually becomes routine, and if Kurapika doesn't put his foot down it's because on some level he is starting to understand why Leorio really does it--that it has nothing to do with provocation or games. And that understanding is dangerous, something he doesn't want to go near, so he puts up with the behavior like he would from no one else. He's not sure Leorio is even fully aware of what he's doing; the way he constantly pushes himself into Kurapika's space--physical or emotional--and leaves his mark on everything there, greedily reaching for whatever catches his eye. Kurapika outwardly ignores it, but on another, deeper level, he is watching carefully; guarding the thing that Leorio actually wants. Keeping it tight to his chest and letting everything else fall away like it didn't matter in the first place.

So it goes on. A book he was reading; a memory he was hoarding. At York Shin, most of his ice cream and a promise to be more cautious. The next time they meet, another book is taken, along with a song he hasn't sung since before the Ryodan. The time after that, a CD with some of Senritsu's music on it is stolen. So is a kiss. Before Kurapika leaves, Leorio asks for what he's really been after all these years: don't go. Come back. Don't go.

Kurapika's prepared for it. He's been readying himself for it for years, ever since he realized what Leorio wanted. So he finally resists, realizing as he does so that all this is as much his fault as Leorio's--because in all these years he's never called Leorio on his actions, never said no once.

He says no this time, and walks away with the thing he's guarded so long still clutched painfully, miserably tight to his chest. And when he realizes that once again, his favorite jacket and a part of himself he never meant to give away have been taken, he doesn't say anything about it.


	5. Wrath

_Another short one--I couldn't get this one quite to where I was happy with it, but you can't get it right every time. Hope it satisfies._

**_Wrath_**

There are many moments when Leorio finds Kurapika beautiful. And most of them are perverse.

Like when he's rattling off facts in that way he has of imitating an interactive encyclopedia. It irritates Leorio, but there's a certain unguarded delight in his expression then, an eagerness to know how and why the world works that nothing can exterminate. The first time Leorio ever noticed him it was because of that expression, and the way it makes his eyes light up.

Or when he's reading, for that matter--soaking up all those facts to be spat back out at you later. His focus on a book is no less intense than his focus on an enemy, his body just as still as in preparation for combat while his eyes flicker across the page. But his expression is gentler. Once Leorio watched him for a quarter of an hour before Kurapika noticed him there, and the whole time Leorio couldn't stop the bizarre thought circling around his head, _this is what he would look like all the time--this peace--if his people had never died._ It made disturbing him impossible.

And when he's teasing Leorio, with that small smile halfway claiming his lips, his eyes saying that he doesn't really mean it while his tone says that he means every single word. Inviting a response that Leorio can't resist giving. Even when it's not teasing but a real fight and Leorio should be thinking nothing but ill of Kurapika, he finds himself captivated. When Kurapika gets cross and starts yelling or goes into an indignant huff, glaring death at him--well, his eyes darken and his hair falls in his face, and the irritated way he pushes it back is a familiar, endearing gesture. It's part of the reason Leorio loses so many of their fights.

But nothing compares to when he's angry. Not frustrated at Leorio or another of their friends, but _really_ angry. When wrath seizes him and his eyes blaze that deadly scarlet shade--deadly to his foes, and deadly in another way to others who once bore eyes like that. Leorio is awed by his anger, frightened and wary--and at the same time fascinated, addicted. Kurapika is more alive in his anger than anything else Leorio has ever seen, and for good or ill it's impossible to look away from him. Beauty and death, redefined.

Kurapika once said that he is afraid to forget his anger. Leorio fears it to, because he knows whenever he sees Kurapika like this that there is no taking away the past; no capturing the smiling, teasing friend or the gentle scholar without this pain and anger woven around everything else, holding it tightly together. Knows that wrath is so deeply a part of Kurapika that without it he would be lifeless, unsmiling and unbeautiful. There has to be shadow for the light to exist.


	6. Lust

_A/N: You know, before I started doing these I didn't realize how much angst I saw in this relationship... then again, the prompts _are_ about sins..._

**Lust**

A hand. Fingers trailing lightly over bare skin; then the palm, mapping the same skin, more thoroughly. Fingertips marking each rise and fall of breath.

"What do you do when I'm not around, anyway?"

The breath of the speaker is coming faster--it tickles the edge of his ear in little short gasps. He's trying to control it, to keep it even, but it always gives him away. It's always the first way Leorio knows he's found a good spot--that sudden intake of breath, tingling against his own skin.

"Well--I have to study _some_time."

They are moving as one, and it has always been like that--no awkward bumping of knees or misplaced elbows, no need to negotiate positions, never, not even the first time. They've always just been like this, without effort, and it's as though Kurapika's already rising to meet him before Leorio's reached for him, already matching his hands to Leorio's before Leorio has moved, so much so that neither of them is ever sure who actually moved first. It doesn't matter.

"So you only study when I'm gone?"

Gone--_no, not now, I don't have to think about that now._ Leorio already spent far too much time pondering the combination of "Kurapika" and "gone." Now was not about that; now was about his hands rediscovering Kurapika's skin, his ears pricked to hear the slightest change of his breath, his hips grinding against Kurapika's and pressing him against the bed. There was little enough time allowed for this without thinking about other things.

"I suppose."

No speech for a moment. Just those tiny gasps, now with a hint of sound behind them--Kurapika is not vocal in bed, this is the most Leorio ever hears, and he'll do anything to provoke that faint ghost of a whine. He pursues it now, tangling their legs, bringing their bodies together, establishing a rhythm that makes Kurapika's back arch. He kissed along Kurapika's neck and down to his chest, feeling pale fingers knit into his hair for a moment and then relax, starting to caress. His own breathing catches up with Kurapika's.

"Leorio--"

His eyes are closed, skin flushed, one leg hooked over Leorio's waist. His fingers are still half-clenched in Leorio's hair. Leorio knows what's coming next.

"This is just lust."

He pants it quietly; an invocation that has lost its power over the years. Leorio believed it at first--that they were young, the situation was intense, their attraction wasn't serious. Harmless. Impermanent. It had been a long time since either of them believed it; Leorio knew Kurapika didn't, and he suspected Kurapika knew Leorio didn't either. Nonetheless--

"Just lust."

Leorio agrees casually, quietly; letting the fragile lie exist for just a bit longer. Because as long as it's just lust they don't have to fight with each other--fight over distance and time, things wanted and not wanted, the incompatibility of the lives they each lead. The dreams they both cherish--utterly different dreams that leave no room for this to be love, or devotion, or anything at all. Anything but lust.

Afterwards, when they hold each other, there are no words. Because if either speaks the lie will shatter, will be exposed for what it is. So they don't talk, not even to assure one another that it's only lust, something they'll eventually grow out of. They wait until they can bear to lie to each other again before they begin to plan the rest of the time they have together. And in the meantime, they look at each other and know, _know_, that all it would take would be for one of them to say a single word and the other would be helpless, completely helpless to do anything but agree.

Silence, Leorio has learned, can be anything but golden.


	7. Sloth

_Um... I didn't mean for these to get shorter as they went. But I've got nothing more to say on the subject. I wanted to save a happy one for the ending. Hope you all enjoyed these. _

**Sloth**

The alarm goes off at six in the morning. Leorio fumbles at it without looking at it for a few minutes; unable to locate the snooze button, he finally solves the problem by pulling the plug out of the wall.

"Aren't you going to school?" Kurapika asks drowsily, from somewhere around Leorio's armpit.

"No," Leorio replied, simply and decisively. He wraps his arms around Kurapika again and they go back to sleep.

The alarm on Kurapika's cell phone goes off an hour later, at seven. Kurapika has to crawl over Leorio and dig through the pile of their clothes on the floor before he can find it and turn it off. "Aren't you going to work?" Leorio asks facetiously, echoing Kurapika's statement.

"I'm on the other side of the world. What do you think?" Kurapika replies, crawling back into bed.

When they both wake for the third time, it is afternoon and Kurapika's cell phone is demanding his attention again. He turns it onto silent. They doze for awhile, drifting in and out, talking quietly--then, less quietly, do other things that don't require talking. They're thusly engaged when Leorio's beeper goes off, and lying lazily against each other in the aftermath when the answering machine later picks up and Gon's voice echoes through the apartment, wondering why he can't get a hold of anybody today.

The sun's setting by the time they finally get up, get dressed, and decide that they'd really rather order take-out than go in search of food or make it themselves. They sprawl on the couch with the little cartons between them, contemplating a swift return to bed and completely unrepentant--after all, it took them nearly seven years to get into the same bed at the same time, and having finally accomplished it, they're in no hurry to move on.


End file.
